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Nonactuarial Pursuits of Casualty Actuaries
A Challenge on Stage
by Marty AdlerI sometimes wonder how many thespians or would-be thespians are among our membership. We certainly have no dearth of Fellows and Associates who speak in public professionally, as panelists or in giving testimony. Early in my career I tried my hand at amateur theatrics, partly for the practice of performing in public. I thought that experience might help avoid butterflies when I would later need to testify in a rate filing. I subsequently learned that Toastmasters would have provided a much better stage for that preparation.
But one of our Fellows has shown courage well beyond what is needed to portray a character convincingly on the stage. For some time he participated in improvisational work in a Chicago club called "Comedy Sportz." The organization originated in Milwaukee and now exists in most major cities around the country. It features competitive improvisation. Two teams compete, with the winner judged by the audience. There are usually about five rounds, each one with a different theme. Somehow the total scores always seem to be close enough to depend on the final round. The culminating event is a national competition by city.
Games are selected in one of three ways: the audience can choose the game (usually by picking the game out of a hat, so to speak), the referee can choose, or the opposing team can. One kind of event is called "Rap Line" where the audience picks the subject, and then each team member sings a couplet, which must be immediately followed by another couplet by an opposing team member, who must rhyme the couplet with the preceding couplet. All this is done in the style of a rap song about the subject selected by the audience.
Another favorite game is called "Five Things," where, only through mime and gibberish, four teammates must convey to their fifth teammate a certain type of activity. For example, through audience interaction the activity would be something crazy like "Bungee jumping off a curb on Fifth Avenue in New York with spaghetti as bungee cords alongside Elvis Presley." Four other such types of "twisted" activities are added to the list and the team must see how well their fifth member can guess the activity in five minutes. Most of the time a team can get four out of five pretty easily, which astounds the audience. Other games are more simplistic, such as acting a scene out three times, but in different genres (for example, washing one's clothes as an opera, as a western, and as a horror movie).
Before moving on to this type of challenge, our Fellow had more conventional theatrical experience. He played supporting roles in high school plays. In The Importance of Being Earnest he played the roles of both butlers, which was a challenge, as one role (Lane) had the last line in Act 1 and the other role (Merriman) had one of the first lines in Act 2. This required massive clothing and makeup changes in a very short period of time. Many who hadn't read the program carefully were surprised to learn that one actor played both parts. Another time he served as assistant director for The Dining Room, which had eight players for over 40 characters.
While in college he took part in independent plays. But after going to work for Allstate, he attended a performance at "Comedy Sportz" and was intrigued by the challenge. At first this seemed rather daunting. He was advised, "If you goof up, do not dwell on the failure—learn from your mistake and immediately move on." This was likened to toddlers learning to walk. Babies will fall a lot, but will not care, since they have not yet learned concepts like embarrassment. They will just get up and try again until they succeed. Understanding this advice was a valuable life lesson.
He started participating on weekends, usually Fridays. After a while, however, he tired of the commute from the suburbs into the city. He also says modestly that the new people were more talented. Ironically, he now lives in Chicago, but is working on an MBA in marketing at the University of Illinois at Chicago, with classes on the Allstate campus.
Perhaps one day Steve Armstrong will return to the fascinating challenge of improvisation.